Are stray animals a problem in your community? What should cities do to combat the problem?

Thomas Allen, Lancaster: We must begin with the conviction that stray dogs are a people problem, not a dog problem. Stray dogs are always the victims of irresponsible human behavior.

All dogs can be confined and trained to be loving companion animals. Irresponsible human behavior causes dogs to become dangerous. The stray dog problem is due to the failure of people to neuter or spay their animals. A first step toward solving the problem is to require that all outside dogs be neutered and chipped.

Suzanna Greer, southwest Dallas: Stray dogs are only an occasional problem in our area; however, even if they are just occasional, it’s a real issue with which to contend. While walking two dogs and being charged at by a stray, it’s very scary and difficult to keep my dogs contained and prevent a dog fight when they are being charged by unleashed dogs. Frankly, I don’t know the full solution since by the time one calls animal control the dogs are gone.

An idea to offer is to have one day annually that Dallas residents can register their dogs for free. Make it a fun community event where folks can bring their pets and hold it in the southern sector since that is the concentration of the most problems. They did that in the community in which I used to live, and as a result most dogs were registered so that when there was a problem with a dog, the owner could be found and a substantive fine be enacted.

Until the city of Dallas is ready make dog registration easier and truly punish owners who don’t register and/or allow the stray dogs, there is not much that can be done that has any teeth in the issue.

Douglas Rose, Grand Prairie: If a dog is truly a man’s best friend, then we need to step to the plate in support of them. Here in our Grand Prairie neighborhood, we seldom have strays due to our own neighborhood watch program.

Through our homeowners association, we join in the online web that keeps us connected on lost and found animals even photos.

Our next-door neighbor even checks any strays for microchips and then takes the other female cats to have them neutered at her own expense.

Rayanna Talley, South Dallas: My family and I live in the part of South Dallas that is remote (some of the police in the south central division have told me they had no idea our neighborhood existed) and isolated. We have had a stray dog problem since our area began to grow with vacant lots being sold and new houses built.

Some days it is awful attempting to drive down our street, there are so many strays. And it isn’t as if we haven’t contacted animal control.

One time, we had to call our councilman’s office to pick up a really cute pit bull because we waited several days for animal control to come get him. We had called control every day before to come get him. They were out in less than two hours once we called Tennell Atkins’ office. Why didn’t they just do their job and not make such a deal out of it?

I have no idea how to solve a problem that wouldn’t be a problem if animal control vehicles would actually drive the streets as they could and should be doing.

Jim West, Ferris: Just a guess here, but I’d bet that 99 percent of strays are born in someone’s yard someone who’s too lazy or stupid to take responsibility for their animals by getting them spayed or neutered. In the case of male dogs, there’s a lot of macho baggage that seems to be attached to neutering them.

When I lived in what they now trendily call the OC in the 1990s, it was overrun by strays, and people sure aren’t getting any smarter. Now that I live in the country where they dump them, like the two I own and the one I just found, there’s no fine large enough to cover the suffering of most of these animals.

If I can’t tame them and get them to my house, a friend will shoot them. That’s as humane an end as they’ll get otherwise. If they do manage to live long enough to mix with coyotes, that creates a whole new set of problems for the environment.

Strict enforcement of spay and neuter laws and big fines for breaking them are long overdue. Ironically, it seems to me that many of these so called “rescue groups” exacerbate the problem by cherry-picking animals from city shelters, thereby taking some of the pressure off of the city. Just the opposite of what needs to happen.

My interaction with them is that they have little interest in solving the problem by attacking the source. The city needs to vigorously enforce these laws. Now.